News

GKV has been recognized as a top agency for healthcare advertising and marketing in 2018 by Clutch, a leading B2B research, ratings and reviews company.
GKV has strong capabilities and decades of successful experience in the healthcare arena. The agency has faced many marketing challenges, from driving enrollment and building a brand in expansion markets to turnaround situations and new product and facility launches. GKV has developed comprehensive, multi-channel advertising campaigns for national and regional clients alike.

At Addys 2018, Baltimore bid farewell to advertising as we’ve known it and embraced the art and business that it has become. With the theme “The Last Addys,” the evening was divided into two acts. First, to reflect on how things used to be, advertising with all its clichés and heavy-handed messaging. And second, to see how far we’ve come, to an era of more personal, human, engaging work.
As a New Orleans band played a sad farewell, we said goodbye to old TV spokespeople like Palmolive’s Madge the Manicurist and Charmin’s Mr. Whipple. But then the night brightened literally and figuratively as this year’s award-winning work was revealed.
Among other awards, GKV took home the coveted “Best in Show” award with an integrated campaign for OLD BAY seasoning entitled, “I’D OLD BAY THAT.” So, while it can be fun to look back, we and our clients find it a lot more rewarding to look forward.

Last week, two GKV partners, Garry Raim and Jeff Millman, took part in the 8th Annual Medicare Marketing Innovations conference in San Diego, CA. Garry served as chairperson for the event, while Jeff gave a talk on the current events in health care, titled “From Election Chaos to Marketing Opportunity — The case for being a …

GKV, 07/07/2017

Clients

Client

Start Year

End Year

Consumer Packaged Goods/Consumer Services

2002

Current

Constellation Energy

2014

Current

BGE Home

2002

Current

French's

2017

Current

Frank's

2017

Current

Old Bay

2016

Current

Absolute Care

2016

Current

Miller Value Partners

2014

Current

McCormick

2016

Current

Bridgestone Golf

2016

Current

About

GKV is celebrating over 30 years of creating advertising, direct marketing, branding, interactive and public relations campaigns that have succeeded in the marketplace and drawn acclaim from our industry. Our success is rooted in our ability to create and execute breakthrough strategies for companies and organizations that are out-spent in their categories. GKV and its clients succeed by challenging the category status quo.

Tradition labels us an advertising agency. But what we really do is bring our Challenger Brand clients critical thinking, planning and innovative execution to the ever-growing number of ways you have to connect with your stakeholders and customers.

To shorten the distance between goals and results, we insist on senior-level relationships. A GKV principal holds the partner-in-charge position for every client on our roster. Our mission and our partner-in-charge philosophy have created productive, long-term relationships with our clients for 30 years.

Mission

Every category has a leader. A bellwether brand whose success over time has earned it a unique standing in the minds of consumers and has effectively created the marketing conventions of the category.Those are not our clients.

Every category has followers. Brands who, despite fewer resources and smaller budgets, attempt to compete with the category leader by emulating it.Those are not our clients, either.

Our clients are the number twos and threes (and the new and unknown) who are taking share from the category leader by not playing by its rules. They are Challenger Brands, committed to the idea that thought leadership will ultimately achieve sales leadership. For thirty years, GKV has helped Challenger Brands succeed by facilitating four key brand behaviors.Challenger Brands

Symbols Of Reevaluation

The biggest enemy of success in the marketplace is not consumer rejection; it’s consumer indifference. They don’t necessarily dislike your company; they just don’t care about what you’re saying. Challenger brands want to disrupt the autopilot relationship they may have with the consumer by making visible changes, creating what we call symbols of reevaluation. Maybe a new product or a new logo or a new pricing strategy. Usually, it’s a visible change to the advertising. Whatever the symbols of reevaluation are, the intent is to announce to the consumer that it’s no longer business as usual.

Emotional Connections

Category leaders generally create the expectations of the category with rational benefits…we’re the biggest, we’re the cheapest, we’re the most convenient, etc. So, that territory is taken. Challenger brands need to be thought leaders. They need to create an emotionally-based rather than a rationally-based relationship with the consumer.

Sacrifice

This is not about making ill-advised media decisions; it’s about focusing on a powerful primary message. There are so many stories that a brand could tell about itself, but the strongest brands are usually very single-minded and are willing to sacrifice some secondary messages.

Brand Inside

There is considerable research indicating that a huge competitive advantage is gained when a company’s culture is visibly aligned with its brand promise. Think about the atmosphere of innovation and forward thinking that you feel in an Apple store. Think about the great customer service and spirit of fun that characterizes your experience on Southwest. In both cases, the culture matches up perfectly with the communications. Unfortunately, this alignment doesn’t occur as often as it should. So, we help challengers live their brand inside by introducing brand-specific goals, policy and training to all employees, which will help them truly understand how the company’s core values translate into specific actions.